Friday, 13 September 2013

The irreversible stroke

What
happens when you have a stroke and why is the damage to the brain extensive or
irreversible..

Here are some answers.

A stroke is a medical
condition where the brain cells suddenly die because of a lack of oxygen. The
cells die a natural death when there is an obstruction in the blood flow or a
rupture of an artery that feeds blood to the brain.

The average human brain
generally weighs three pounds or 1.35 kilograms and it contains anything
between 10 billion to 100 billion neurons and even a larger count of glial
cells.

When a person is affected by
stroke, close to two million cells die
and the person may suddenly lose the ability to speak, think or walk,
talk. There may also be memory problems or one or two sides of the body can become paralyzed.
The blocked cell form a clot and it is this clot that stops circulation of
blood to the tissue in the brain, leading to neurological damages. The stoppage
in the flow of oxygen and blood to the brain is a deadly Natural act which
requires to be reversed if the damage is to be undone or lessened.

An unfortunate fallout of a
stroke is paralysis and this kills lakhs of people all over the world. In US
alone, paralysis in stroke victims kills one and a half million or thereabouts
every year.

There is some good news
though. Half the victims of stroke do survive with varying and often
deteriorating degree of paralysis.

A stroke in nothing but a
brain attack. Just as there is a heart attack, there is also a brain attack and
this is called stroke which is the third leading cause of death in the United States. Approximately
20 million people each year will suffer from stroke and of these five million
will not survive. In developed
countries, stroke is the first leading cause for disability, second leading
cause of dementia and third leading cause of death. By 2015, India will
report 1.6 million cases of stroke annually, at least one-third of whom will be
disabled.

Stroke is also classified as a
major cause for loss of life, limbs and speech in India,
with the Indian Council of Medical Research estimating that in 2004, there were
9.3 lakh cases of stroke and 6.4 lakh deaths due to stroke in India. What is
tragic is that most of these people are 45 years old or less.

The World Health organization
says by 2050, nearly 80 per cent stroke cases in the world would occur in low
and middle income countries including India China and Brazil.

This is the main reason why India has now
come out with national guidelines for stroke management. This guideline has
been Prepared by Dr Kameshwar Prasad, director of the clinical epidemiology
unit of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, doctors from Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences,
Hyderabad, CommandHospital in Lucknow
and PGI in Chandigarh.

The guidelines are fairly
comprehensive and they cover the management of stroke from onset to chronic
care.

Stroke has a propensity for
people with high blood pressure, diabetes and high blood fat, which is also
called as cholesterol. What makes Indians more vulnerable to stroke is that 16 per
cent or more above 20 years of age suffer from high blood pressure (BP).
Shockingly, Fifty per cent of those with high BP are not even aware of it. Of
those who are aware, only 50 per cent take measures to control it, and even
among those only 50 per cent are
adequately controlled. This, means just about 12.5 per cent of patients with
high BP are adequately controlled against stroke.

The guidelines make it
mandatory for hospitals to set up a Acute Stroke Team, written care protocols for
such patients and an emergency department whose personnel should be trained to
diagnose and treat all types of stroke.

Early and timely diagnosis of
stroke can help in a large way in the treatment and further spread or
deterioration of paralysis.

The National Institute of
Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, has done far reaching studies on
several aspects of neurological disorders, stroke, brain related diseases and other
related aspects. More about them in the coming posts.

(The next post is on a net to
fish blood clots and thus reverse brain damage and paralysis).

Allopathy or the modern system of medicine labels it calls it degenerative and often fatal disorder. It says there is no known effective ...

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